Nicol David – The Best Malaysian Sports Person

Nicol David just turned out to be Malaysia’s best sports person by far. This is in spite the sport she excels is not as popular but to be fair, she has quietly not only won top accolades but maintained her world number one position for the 7th time yesterday at the Cayman Islands (read here).

In December of 2010, our PM Najib surprised the country to announce a public holiday right after our football team won the AFF Finals, hardly a world class international sport. Well, we could not repeat that this time and we dropped out of the competition before reaching the semi finals.

As for Nicol David, she not only won so many Squash Open titles but she won 7 World Open Titles to date. She had won the title in Hong Kong in 2005, Northern Ireland (2006), England (2008), Egypt (2010) and twice in the Netherlands (2009 and 2011) and now in the Cayman Islands (2012).

All she got herself was a Datukship from Penang but nothing to shout about at the Federal level. Probably because the BN Government does not know how to take advantage of Nicol’s success for political gains.

Alas, after winning the title for the 7th time, Malaysia is still oblivious to the extent of success our dear Nicol has accomplished. She has created world squash history. Certainly, this beats winning the Thomas Cup once a blue moon (the moon has not turned blue for a long time now) and getting a silver medal at the Olympics for Badminton.

Regardless how our Government treats her, we the Rakyat of Malaysia salutes you, Nicol David, as our best sports person of Malaysian history. We shall always remember you flying high our flag each time you win a tournament.

Keep it up! Hopefully our PM Najib will wake up to smell your success this time.